Recently, a variety of information provision systems using network have been proposed to prepare information infrastructure.
Some of such information provision systems provides service to users, with which players at remote locations can play board games such as shogi (Japanese chess) and igo (Game of go) by using internet server, and a leased server and leased line for portable telephone, such as i-mode.
As typical representative of the system providing the board game service, there are techniques disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication Nos. 56-3078 and 54-110033, and Publication of EP114210.
In the system disclosed in these Publications, a game player of a competitive game (a board game such as mah-jongg, shogi, igo, chess, or othelo) starts a personal computer (hereinafter referred to as a “PC”) at the player's convenience to connect with a server through which the player can play the competitive game, thereby receiving the service.
However, against the system of the prior art, the following problems have been pointed out.
(1) It is seldom that the competitor is always present at the time of connect with the server. Therefore, the fact is that due to the absence of the competitor, the user often gives up receiving the competitive game service and releases the connection with the server. If this circumstance is frequent, the manager (administrator) of the server might lose the user (membership). From a cost standpoint, it is difficult to always guarantee a game player on access to the server.
(2) There is a competitive game in which the user can compete with the server side computer. It is equally true, however, that the user playing a game via a communication-line has such a potential desire that “he/she wants to enjoy the game with an actual human player.” In addition, if the player of the communication-line competitive game knows that the competitor is the computer, it is meaningless to specially use the communication line because there is no difference with a game or consumer game that is already installed in a PC.